After a predictable period of cutting off from an ex-spouse it is worth finding a way to make contact again. “How making more contact helps to get unstuck: One of the interesting paradoxes of becoming more mature is that making more contact with previously significant people helps to create better boundaries in these relationships.” –…
This podcast begins to explore the various ways our immaturities are managed in marriage. In my book Growing Yourself Up, I refer to these patterns as ‘maturity detours’. This podcast looks at the dance of conflict and distance between spouses. Lifting up out of this intense pattern of attacking and defending requires a spouse to…
In this podcast, Jenny Brown shares an audio recording of a role played counselling session. It tracks the history of how each spouse has unknowingly contributed to a frustration in their marriage where one feels overburdened carrying the weight of responsibility and the other perceives the other as overly critical and lacking compassion – but…
In this Podcast Jenny Brown goes into the complexities of having your first child, including the joys and challenges that both parents may face.
– Balancing holding our limits with non-anxious connection. Keeping a focus on our thinking and behaviour as parents is especially difficult when parenting teenagers. Sometimes adolescent behaviours are full of so much impulsivity and intense emotion that we turn all our attention to trying to manage them – rather than managing ourselves in our interactions…
In this podcast Jenny Brown shares ways that parents may become anxiously focussed on one or more of their children. What is the effect of this focus on the child’s development? What difference does it make for children when the worry focus is reduced and parent confidence increases? How can a parent work on growing…
This talk was presented by Dr Jenny Brown in Dec 2018 at the school presentation day for PLC Sydney. It was delivered at the Sydney Opera House. Jenny reflects on how flourishing emerges from solid internal character, to connect genuinely with others and to self-regulate and self-direct. She proposes that the more parents and other…
A panicked mother discovers that her 12 year old daughter is writing stories with some sexually graphic and violent descriptions. How could this be? Has she been abused in some way? How do I approach her about it? The tumult of questions in response to this parenting shock point is seemingly endless for this parent….
Interventions and Confrontations – Are they the most helpful ways to respond to severe problems in a person we care for? Because I view a person’s symptoms as part of their system of relationships I now focus on expressing my own position in the relationship rather than focus on the problems in the other. Last…
How does a parent respond to a child slipping backwards in their functioning? – When children manage a new developmental task and then regress to behaving in an earlier more childish manner. In this current climate of anxious focus on children, giving attention to a child’s anxious or regressed episodes can happen automatically. It often…
Joe reflected on the progress he had made as a parent saying: “Over the last couple of years I had lost all confidence and direction as a parent with Chloe; but now it’s like I’ve got hold of the steering wheel again. Now when she’s pushing and pushing to get what she wants, I know…
Seeing triangles provides a key to unlocking ways to bring our best to our most important relationships. ‘Jenny, today when I heard you describe your triangle with your mother I thought: “Oh my goodness – You are fuelling the problem in your family!” I can see for the first time that I’m adding to my…
